I Love Reylo

 I've only gotten into Stars Wars fairly recently. I'd seen one movie when I was a lot younger with my dad and that was pretty much it for quite a long time. Which is kind of a good thing because I feel like I appreciate the movies better now than I would have in the past. Even though I wish I could say I grew up with it. It's not really an important detail but I thought I'd mention it.

Disclaimer: I mean no offence to anyone. I just have a lot of thoughts and I know this is a controversial pairing.

To begin with Kylo Ren/Ben Solo...

#1 Adam Driver is an incredible actor. 

 I love good villains, antagonists, heroes, and plain dumb entertaining characters. I'm not special. 

My favourite ones though are messy characters. Ones at war with themselves. Heroes who struggle with making good decisions. I don't really relate to characters who embody perfect ideals because that's just it. They're not really people but a cardboard advertisement instead of multi-faceted humans.

I love gray characters. 

Kylo Ren is essentially an emo teenager who's dramatic, stupid and confused and I love him.

 He's struggling and angry and battling himself. He's human. . He's failing being what he's 'supposed' to be. He doesn't fit and he's lonely.

That being said Kylo Ren has done terrible things, I'm not denying that at all or forgetting what he's done but he was also a leader on the dark side. Like that's literally the whole point to being on the dark side. It's kind of your job description.

 You can't really have a redemption arc if the one being redeemed doesn't have anything to be redeemed of. He will always have to live with the things he's done. There's weight to it. 

Now Rey...

One thing I loved about Rey in The Last Jedi is that she was nothing. She wasn't important and I loved that. I wish they'd kept to that in the Rise of Skywalker which is a movie I have so many issues with that it deserves it's own post. Hopefully I'll get to that at some point.

She's on the light side, yes. But she's struggling with the dark side. She's afraid. She's battling herself. It's a lonely thing to constantly battle yourself. It's hard work. It's isolating even if you're surrounded by people. No one really knows what she's going through because no one else is having this problem. It's easy for them.

She's not quite the hero everyone thinks she is and she learns Kylo or Ben isn't quite the monster she thinks he is. She could become just the same as him. They're both a little gray.

A line that was in the Rise of Skywalker trailer was 

"Everyone keeps telling me that they know me, but they don't."

And then there's Kylo's voice saying, "But I do."

I absolutely loved that line and it wasn't in the movie and I'm still bitter about it.

There's a depth to their relationship that I'm struggling to put into words. They're both fighting for each other and they're caught on opposite sides of a war and they're trying to reconcile the two. They care about each for who they really are. When I say I ship Reylo I mean Ben Solo and Rey. Because Ben Solo is who he really is. Kylo needed to be redeemed. Their relationship isn't simple. It's complicated but in the best way. It's growing and changing slowly for the better. I also just really love battle couples. I'm basic, I know.

And also if this isn't a power couple I don't know what is. Literally the rest of my argument is gifs.

I didn't really do this justice so I'm going to end it there. I love Reylo. I am a trash human who likes battered, misunderstood and broken trash with substance. Sorry that this post a disaster.

Self Care

Self Care is randomly going into the woods to put mud on your face.

Also the mud was way more leafy and gravelly than I expected. My brother was nice enough to take photos.

I went out in super cracked converse and was surrounded by litter. I came back covered in burrs and mud. It pretty much sums me up as a human.

I'm just trying to live my best life and try keep my mental health balanced if at all possible.

How to Survive Our Family Roadtrips

   In light of everything this is probably the least currently applicable post I could have done. But I thought it could be a fun dumb thing about one of my favourite trips ever.

Also this happened last November. I don't know why that's important for you to know.

   I feel like I need to explain a couple things before I should begin, my step-dad works an out-of-province job (I live in Canada). And the biggest thing you should know going into this is that he likes his trips to be a surprise. We get little to no information about what we're doing, or where we're going. The fact we got a phone call out of the blue from him saying we're leaving for Tofino in four hours, was shocking to all of us. Not so much the trip (although that was a surprise too) but the fact we got THAT much specific information.

Essentially this was my family after we ran like maniacs on cocaine to get ready when he walked in the door.

                                                                   

     

  Skye from Ink Calamities came with and I'm still SO glad she could make it. Regardless of how sarcastic that sounds typed out, I mean every bit of it. I warned her how our trips normally go but it's pretty much the same for her family so she was cool with it. And then we ate decently that trip and stayed in the nicest hotel/cabin thing I've ever stayed in. We ate an amazing breakfast every morning to start with. We never do that. After all my warnings it was probably one of the nicest (while still hectic) trips we've ever done.

Anways...

  #1 rule of Survival. This is crucial. Bring your mother. She will be the only reason nobody dies during the trip.   

#2 Count the children. You will lose some of them. Whether they go missing or try running headlong into the ocean. No children made it to the water just to clarify. There were no drownings.

                                                                               

  

#3 Remember your own way around a ferry

#4 Unplug the complementary hairdryer when it starts to smell bad  after you've been blow drying copious amounts of shoes. You will never know whether the hair dryer is going to catch on fire or if it was just the shoes. Best not to risk it.

#5 The washer and dryer are not exploding like a rocket ship it just sounds like it. Best avoid walking by it just in case however.

#6 Drink tons of tea

#7 Be prepared to wait on the beach for who knows how long. Because you're step-dad will leave to explore. You won't know where he went, how long he's gone, or if you were supposed to follow him. He will walk off into the sun at the drop of a hat. You love him but for the love of anything good, make sure you take the vehicle keys away from him so you can warm up with sand/mud covered children.

                                                                         

                                                                               

#8 Everything in Tofino is inspiringly gorgeous. It's the most stunning magical fae place I've ever seen. One place looked like you were literally standing in a painting. I don't think anything will compare to that moment. 

#9 When the tide coming in sounds like it's legitimately laughing at you, run. It only moves in faster.

#10 Don't fall on top of a beached jellfish when you're trying to spin a perfect circle with your foot. I didn't actually fall on it but I almost did.

#11  Don't pay attention to how much money you're step-dad is spending for all of you.

#12 Jump on giant bulbous seawed ends. It makes a very satisfying cracking sound. Unless it's rotten, in which case you will have a stream of water up your back.

#13 Watch out for any beaches that have a small part of a sign that casually mentions that if you see a certain kind of bomb you should clear the area. The sign will be in front of a building that is closed 5 days a week. I would add the photo we took but I'm too lazy to try find it. I didn't use my camera for that at the time so it's harder too find.

#14 Learn some basic tracking skills. Because you will literally have to to look at rocky mud to see which way half your family went because you and the the other half somehow got left behind. The only way you find them is a thin line of what is either your baby stroller or the mountain biker that rode past you a few minutes ago.

#15 Take as many photos as you can. Also don't spend the entire time looking through your camera either.

#16 Food in Tofino is amazing

#17 You and Skye will be very excited about mushrooms and your mom will ask you what on earth you're so excited about.                                             

It's the cutest mushroom I've ever seen

#18 Read The Scorpio Races by Maggie Steifvater afterwards. It says pretty much everything you wish you were able to say

There is way more I could add and tons more detail I could get into but here's a few photos instead.

                                                

This is Skye in the purple. We pretty much all looked like that XD

Me stuck in a tree. I don't get in the photos often (on purpose really)

Sorry if this was super long and didn't make sense. I've been informed that I speak in half sentences and no one knows what I'm talking about half the time. Which is fair, usually I don't either.

                                                                    

The Fantabulous

  I saw Birds of Prey last February and while I know it's not everyone's kind of thing, personally I loved it! And this seems to be a bit of an unpopular opinion but I really liked the long title. I understand why they changed it, but personally I just really liked it.

Going into the movie, I only knew Harley Quinn had broken up with the Joker and I'd seen a photo of her eating cheese-wiz and crying on a couch. Just that image alone was the whole reason I wanted to see this movie. I saw the trailer for the first time on the way over to the theater. 

As far the movie goes I went in with some slight personal reservations but really it was everything I wanted it to be. One worry was it was going to be over-the-top feminist and man-hating but it really wasn't. Just a purely fun albeit dangerous glow-up film for Harley from her perspective. It's violent and chaotic, it jumps around but it works, the aesthetics were everything, the fight scenes were amazing, there's confetti bombs, a hyena named Bruce, grocery shopping, egg sandwiches, explosions, a pick pocket kid with absolutely no gag reflex...  There's so much more I could add that's probably more relevant to the plot but I digress. It is also R rated, but I'm assuming most people going to see this movie know that.

It's crazy and brilliant. Also I wasn't expecting to care so much about it. For whatever reason this movie was exactly what I needed at the time. Ewen McGregor plays a great villain. I actually thought the Birds all had plenty of time to come into themselves for their origin story. And I loved how they would make plans and as soon as they tried to carry it out it fell into shambles and they had to adapt. I would have loved to see more of them but I also loved what we got of them. I thought it suited the movie well. They were all fantastic. Everyone in this movie was.

There's so much I could say about what I love about this movie. I appreciate all the time and effort so many people had to put into it. I think it shows. I heard in a random YouTube video I watched that someone described this movie as feeling like a passion project and I whole-heartedly agree.

Grass and Reeds

          I wrote a random snippet for spring. It's temporary name is Grass and Reeds because it has grass and reeds in it. I am a master at creatively naming things.



        Ice drip-mixed with mud around the roots of brittle reeds. The shards of ice cut her hands as she tried to dig the pieces out. Sliver bits and mud stuck too far underneath her nails turning her fingers cold and raw. It was painful, but in the way that meant you were doing something; feeling something.

  Underneath her mud-slicked hands and the dead reedy fodder of a previous year, something was growing. Grass green and new. She wanted to see it. To feel it. To touch it. She wanted the smell of a new green thing to be mixed with the steel smell of the dull ice.

  Birds chirped and sang and bickered high up in the trees announcing to each other they'd returned.
The sun pushed through the thick mass of grey cloudy cover. The breezes rustled around things not quite up to the times in knowing it was supposed to be warming, and not still in charge of dripping noses.

  She scratched at this lonely wilderness out of place in the reeds but peaceful. Underneath the stick in her hands she uncovered bits and tufts of green. She laughed at the twisted, pathetic raggedness of it, like a plant growing under a rock. She touched the tips of it. Inside she was bursting, loving it for it's yellowed greenness.

  Outside she only had a smile, her eyes held everything else. Carefully she placed back the brown fodder that used to be this same plant back over top and left. No one had seen her and no one ever would. You'd barely notice the slight difference she'd made to the ground when she'd come to  see some wild grass growing by herself, but she knew she'd been there.







                                   

Bare-boned Introduction

 
My name is Elizabeth or Liz depending on who's talking to me. I am the oldest in a Christian family of eight kids and 20 years old, which is a shock to us all.


I have thought about doing a blog for years and now I'm finally starting. Starting with a lot of screaming and hesitation but here none-the-less. I thought I'd start this blog at the beginning of 2020 because that seemed fitting. New decade, new blog. It is now March so if that's any indication for how this blog is going to go...

As to what this blog is or what it's for, I have no idea. I can barely find the font size button. It's going to be a smattering of everything.